Freedom of Speech (was fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail )

[Jim_Stephenson-Dunn]

Whilst I certainly believe that that arguement may be used by spammers (and
probably will), the concept of freedom of speech was that you could talk
un-obstructed by any persons or organisations. The audience had the option
wheather they wanted to listen or not, if they did not, they would simply walk
away.

With the advent of email however, we have lost the right to walk away and not
listen, so now we have to open the mail, read the mail and decide if we are
intrested in the contents of the mail, before deleting it. The loss of time and
man hours could be significant enough to warrant charges maybe being drawn up
against the spammer for theft of that employees time. and whilst the spammers
will invoke the freedom of speech excuse, will it make any difference when in
effect you have a captive audience who cannot even exercise the right to walk
away.

Wow, this is getting very legal (and I am a Network Engineer, not an attorney,
Damn it ;-> (apologies to Dr. McCoy))

What is the legal perspective on this ? (clip notes please ;-> )

Jim




**
*   Legal Disclaimer
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*  *
*The opinions expressed within this mail are specifically my own and in no way
refer to or relate to any  *
*ongoing business and/or the technical direction of 3Com Corporation, or any
subsidiary companies or   *
*business units within 3Com Corporation and it's subsidiaries.
*
*  *
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Keith Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on 06/15/2000 06:35:23 PM

Sent by:  Keith Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


To:   Doug Isenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
cc:   "'ietf @ietf.org'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (Jim Stephenson-Dunn/C/HQ/3Com)
Subject:  Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail



> I've yet to read the whole bill (H.R. 3113), but I suspect (or, at
>least, hope) that the politicians behind this legislation are intending to
>draft a federal law that, unlike at least two state attempts, will survive
>a constitutional challenge.

And I hope that the courts will finally realize that freedom of speech
includes the freedom not to have your communications disrupted by people
who want to sell you things.

Keith

RE: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Robert G. Ferrell]

>   The possibility remains, however, that this solution might not be
>popular with the people in the business of producing such advertisements. 

Aye, there's the rub.  

Most of the unsolicited commercial email I receive that I would 
classify as true 'spam' is shotgunned indiscriminately to people with no 
apparent common interests other than having an email address. It seems to 
me that enforcing any sender-originated controls over this sort of 
communication will be tough.  Spammers for the most part know they're being 
annoying; they just figure the small percentage of people who do respond make 
the effort worthwhile, especially if they're able to achieve a certain level of 
anonymity using spoofing software or anonymous remailers.  These folks are 
unlikely to conform with any standard that inhibits their ability to hit as many 
people as possible with their message.

Cheers,

RGF

Robert G. Ferrell, CISSP

 Who goeth without humor goeth unarmed.

RE: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[James Wilson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1


Unsolicited bulk or commercial email.  Fairly straightforward. 
Unsolicited, as in you did not ask to receive it.  Bulk, as in sent to
masses of people, including but not limited to "repent ye sinners" and
"fund my charity" or "vote for me."  Commercial, as in intended to
generate income directly or indirectly.  Basically any form of
cost-shifted advertisement, profit or non-profit.

The issue is that if you want to blast out your ad, whatever the
content, you should not make other people i.e. the intermediary
networks/hijacked relays and end recipients, pay for transporting and
receiving the ad.  

The problem is that so long as there are ISP's who knowingly provide
services to the spammers including hosting websites when the spammers
spam via separate providers, there will be volume spam.  If every US
provider, including those providing transit service outside of the US,
refused to peer/do business with providers who allow spammers on their
network/host websites for spammers and sent those feeds to null0, spam
could be reduced significantly.If those providers' feeds were
blocked from the US backbone until they canned the spam they might put
a stop to it on their side of the pond.  Right now a large percentage
of the spam is being relayed by servers external to the US,
particularly from .jp and .kr and Telstra/Big Pond in .au.  Most of
the websites themselves are being hosted in the US by providers who
won't nuke a site that is spamvertized.

Radical, perhaps.  A technical solution, yes.  If you don't want laws,
you need a technical solution.  If you don't want technical solutions
like the RBL (blocking feeds,) then pass laws to punish the
spamhaus/spamophiles/Rodonas of the net and the providers who enable
their spew.  One way or another something has to be done, as the
spammers and their providers are killing email as a viable business
medium with its (spams) negative halo effect, and everyone is paying
for it except the spammers and their providers.

- -
James D. Wilson, CCDA, MCP
"non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem"
William of Ockham (1285-1347/49)
 


- -Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
Of
Mark Atwood
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2000 3:34 PM
To: Chip Rosenthal
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail


Chip Rosenthal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 09:35:23PM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
> > And I hope that the courts will finally realize that freedom of
speech 
> > includes the freedom not to have your communications disrupted by
people 
> > who want to sell you things.
> 
> The biggest problem with the bill, as it currently reads, is that
the
> transport notification has been dropped.  There was an ID by Hoffman
> and Levine (I believe since expired, can't find it now) that allowed
> an organization to "opt out" from unsolicited commercial email by
> indicating so in the SMTP banner.

Rescap Profile for Mail User Agents
draft-hoffman-rescap-mua-02.txt
November 20, 1999

- -- 
Mark Atwood   | It is the hardest thing for intellectuals to
understand, that
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | just because they haven't thought of something,
somebody else
  | might. <http://www.friesian.com/rifkin.htm>
http://www.pobox.com/~mra


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Comment: I live for the sound ... of nothing but net

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St+++K5XqfDVC6LerGusbd0=
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Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Vernon Schryver]

> From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> While this may be important enough to have some discusion on the
> general IETF list, I would point out that there does exist an IETF
> working group in this area: RUN, Responsible Use of the Net
> .  This working
> group produced RFC 2635 which was adopted by the IETF Consensus
> process.

> ...
> >Herein lies one of the major issues that ought to be sorted out before 
>>anyone takes any steps to regulate spam.  What is spam, exactly?  There seems 
> >to be a wide variety of notions as to what constitutes a spam.  Some 
> >people define it in its original context; i.e., unsolicited commercial 
> >email.  Others broaden the definition to include offensive or off-topic 
> >remarks on a public or private list.  Still others would include *any* email 
>>they didn't want to receive as 'spam. ...

There are surely better places to argue about spam.  If you can use
killfiles, the news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup is a hotbed of
discussions of such as the definition of spam.


RFC 2635 does not really define email spam.  The following definitions
are common.  I list them not to start a long flame war, but to counter
the (surprising to me) ignorance about the issue.  If you disagree
with my blatant bias, please assume everyone else will and don't bother
correcting me.

  1. unsolicited bulk email, or email at least some of which is received
   by many people who did not explicitly or implicitly ask for it
   (e.g. by foolishly giving their addresses to sleazy vendors that
   don't say they won't spam.)

  2. unsolicited commercial mail even if not bulk.

  3. unsolicited promotional including commercial mail, also even if not bulk.

  4. anything someone doesn't like.

  5. various definitions from kooks and sleazy merchants and advertisers
   trying to carve exceptions for their missives or trying to paint as
   kooks or fools all who don't like unsolicited advertising.

Among people with technical and administrative clues, #1 is the very clear
consensus.  In it, "bulk" is intentionally vague, but almost no one who
favors #1 is willing to argue against any definition of "bulk" between
half a dozen and a few gross.  The messages that comprise a spam spew
defined by #1 need be only essentially identical instead of byte-for-byte
the same, partly because spammers like to "target" their drivel, partly
because they try to evade spam filters, and mostly because they're
incompetent at everything including sending bulk email.  When you're
running systems, it's usually easy to painfully easy to know when a message
is "bulk" because your systems will often hiccup, your logs will overflow,
and you'll get complaints from many targets.  On the other hand, people
with operational responsibilities rarely want to get involved in the
judging of content that the other definitions require--at least not after
a little real world experience.

#2 is favored by many individuals who have never had operational
responsibilities, because it is usually impossible for an individual spam
target to know instead of merely reliably guess whether an unsolicited
message is one of a bulk blast, and because they're often not gun-shy
about judging content.  #2 is also favored by CAUCE and many other
self-described charitable and political organizations who presumably hope
to send unsolicited notes promoting their causes and soliciting funds.
(Or perhaps CAUCE advocates #1 but with an exception for non-profit spam;
I forget.  That is one cause for the previously mentioned distrust of
CAUCE.  Another is the continued, paid involvement of a major CAUCE figure
with AllAdvantage.com, which some people view as an unrepentant,
irredeemable solicitor of spam because they say AllAdvantage.com continues
to pay spammers money.)  #3 is commonly advocated by individuals without
operational experience, but who dislike political and charitable spam as
much as other advertising.  #4 is commonly proposed by spammers as a straw
man to show how impossible it would be to regulate or prohibit spam, as
well as by people who haven't thought about the problem.


Vernon Schryver[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Mark Atwood]

Chip Rosenthal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 09:35:23PM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
> > And I hope that the courts will finally realize that freedom of speech 
> > includes the freedom not to have your communications disrupted by people 
> > who want to sell you things.
> 
> The biggest problem with the bill, as it currently reads, is that the
> transport notification has been dropped.  There was an ID by Hoffman
> and Levine (I believe since expired, can't find it now) that allowed
> an organization to "opt out" from unsolicited commercial email by
> indicating so in the SMTP banner.

Rescap Profile for Mail User Agents
draft-hoffman-rescap-mua-02.txt
November 20, 1999

-- 
Mark Atwood   | It is the hardest thing for intellectuals to understand, that
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | just because they haven't thought of something, somebody else
  | might. 
http://www.pobox.com/~mra

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Donald E. Eastlake 3rd]

While this may be important enough to have some discusion on the
general IETF list, I would point out that there does exist an IETF
working group in this area: RUN, Responsible Use of the Net
.  This working
group produced RFC 2635 which was adopted by the IETF Consensus
process.

Donald

From:  "Robert G. Ferrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-Id:  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date:  Mon, 19 Jun 2000 10:37:35 -0500 (CDT)
Reply-To:  "Robert G. Ferrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

X-Loop:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> It is also impossible to differentiate between so-called
>> spam and expressions of a personal political, social or
>> artistic nature. 
>
>Herein lies one of the major issues that ought to be sorted out before 
>anyone takes any steps to regulate spam.  What is spam, exactly?  There seems  
>to be a wide variety of notions as to what constitutes a spam.  Some 
>people define it in its original context; i.e., unsolicited commercial 
>email.  Others broaden the definition to include offensive or off-topic 
>remarks on a public or private list.  Still others would include *any* email 
>they didn't want to receive as 'spam.'  It would be extremely challenging and 
>largely useless to attempt to regulate what you can't even categorize, methinks.
>
>RGF
>
>Robert G. Ferrell
>
> Who goeth without humor goeth unarmed.
>
>

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Matt Crawford]

> actually I'd settle for well-defined mandatory labelling - at the SMTP
> level for big volume spammers and at the 822 level for everyone.

Perhaps a future First Lady Tipper Gore will try to help you out
there, as she did for the consumers of recorded music.


Around here, we've been warned against sending "profane content" by
people who obviously don't know the meaning of "profane".

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Keith Moore]

> >And I hope that the courts will finally realize that freedom of speech
> >includes the freedom not to have your communications disrupted by people
> >who want to sell you things.
> 
> I dunno, Keith. What you are asking for is content control - you are saying 
> that certain content shouldn't get to you. Usually, you are asking that 
> content not be controlled in any way.

actually I'd settle for well-defined mandatory labelling - at the SMTP
level for big volume spammers and at the 822 level for everyone.
 
> But I have to say that this particular thread is fairly far afield of 
> anything resembling an engineering topic. Would it be too onerous to ask 
> that it be moved to a free-speech-includes-or-does-not-include-advertising 
> discussion list?

the relevance to IETF is that Congress, with the encouragement of
the DMA, is pushing technically poor solutions.  and IETF is the 
biggest store of technical expertise in Internet mail.

whether IETF itself would want to send a message to Congress is
something I hadn't yet thought about.  it might be a good idea.

but even if IETF as an organization didn't want to do this it's 
certainly not unusual for IETF to act via its individual members 
rather than as an organization.

Keith

RE: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Dennis Glatting]

On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, Book, Robert wrote:

>   I would think it fairly evident that spam is in the eye of the
> beholder. I suspect that a popular resolution would, therefore, need to
> provide the receiver with control over the type of information allowed
> through a personal filter. This could be implemented by defining a key field
> with a range of values and refinements universally understood by all email
> packages. For instance, if an email header were read to determine that it
> contained an advertisement of a product within a specific product line and
> the email client could be optioned by the receiver as to the desired
> disposition of an email (to include sending  it directly to the bit bucket)
> with that classification, the receiver is given control and, so long as the
> system is honored by the senders of the email, minimal umbrage on the part
> of the receivers of email. Spam might then be redefined as email which did
> not follow the classification convention.

Simply because one chooses to be on the Internet, surely is not required
one to incur the cost of others' business methods. If one (the receiver)
pays network costs and one does not wish to receive UCE, then why should
one incur any cost (bandwidth usage, registration, whatever) of receiving
UCE even to reject it?


-dpg

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Mike Truskowski]

Wow, an example of what Keith is asking for ... free speech
without having to hear it...

I vote for Fred's idea, I was tired of it last week.

mike

> 
> At 09:35 PM 6/15/00 -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
> >And I hope that the courts will finally realize that freedom of speech
> >includes the freedom not to have your communications disrupted by people
> >who want to sell you things.
> 
> I dunno, Keith. What you are asking for is content control - you are saying 
> that certain content shouldn't get to you. Usually, you are asking that 
> content not be controlled in any way.
> 
> But I have to say that this particular thread is fairly far afield of 
> anything resembling an engineering topic. Would it be too onerous to ask 
> that it be moved to a free-speech-includes-or-does-not-include-advertising 
> discussion list?
> 
> 
> 

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Fred Baker]

At 09:35 PM 6/15/00 -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
>And I hope that the courts will finally realize that freedom of speech
>includes the freedom not to have your communications disrupted by people
>who want to sell you things.

I dunno, Keith. What you are asking for is content control - you are saying 
that certain content shouldn't get to you. Usually, you are asking that 
content not be controlled in any way.

But I have to say that this particular thread is fairly far afield of 
anything resembling an engineering topic. Would it be too onerous to ask 
that it be moved to a free-speech-includes-or-does-not-include-advertising 
discussion list?

RE: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Book, Robert]

I would think it fairly evident that spam is in the eye of the
beholder. I suspect that a popular resolution would, therefore, need to
provide the receiver with control over the type of information allowed
through a personal filter. This could be implemented by defining a key field
with a range of values and refinements universally understood by all email
packages. For instance, if an email header were read to determine that it
contained an advertisement of a product within a specific product line and
the email client could be optioned by the receiver as to the desired
disposition of an email (to include sending  it directly to the bit bucket)
with that classification, the receiver is given control and, so long as the
system is honored by the senders of the email, minimal umbrage on the part
of the receivers of email. Spam might then be redefined as email which did
not follow the classification convention.
The possibility remains, however, that this solution might not be
popular with the people in the business of producing such advertisements. I
seem to recall, from a time when I was living in Europe, the VCRs over there
had the capability to key off of a signal in the broadcast signal. This
"off" signal, and it's corresponding "on" signal, were sent, respectively,
before and after commercial messages. I have yet to see that feature in any
VCRs in the US market. :-)
 

-Original Message-
From: Robert G. Ferrell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2000 11:38 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail 


> It is also impossible to differentiate between so-called
> spam and expressions of a personal political, social or
> artistic nature. 

Herein lies one of the major issues that ought to be sorted out before 
anyone takes any steps to regulate spam.  What is spam, exactly?  There
seems  
to be a wide variety of notions as to what constitutes a spam.  Some 
people define it in its original context; i.e., unsolicited commercial 
email.  Others broaden the definition to include offensive or off-topic 
remarks on a public or private list.  Still others would include *any* email

they didn't want to receive as 'spam.'  It would be extremely challenging
and 
largely useless to attempt to regulate what you can't even categorize,
methinks.

RGF

Robert G. Ferrell

 Who goeth without humor goeth unarmed.

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Randall . Gale]

It's easy to classify SPAM as "junkmail" or UCE but I think that leaves 
too much to interpretation these days.
Especially given the almost completely commercial applications of "the 
net" (gawd, I hate to even think of Sandra B. and her magic octet).
I think the answer could live in what is commonly referred to as a "pull" 
versus a "push" type of marketing.
If you take the time to ask people, in a non-obtrusive way, what they're 
interested in, then usually, enough people will respond to
help you "meet your numbers and get your trip" (or whatever motivates the 
source of information).

The trick (or tightrope that must be walked), is to find a middle ground 
with consumers.  How can enough information about you be gathered and 
analyzed (with your permission) to only (or for the most part) give you 
information that interests you.  Cookies?  not sure.  PKI "hooks"?  Not 
sure either.  Heck, I'm not sure what the difference is if you really 
think all "hippy" about what they're really both being used (planned) for.

The net has the potential to be a great vehicle for sales.  The only 
reason I say it has potential, in spite of its obvious success, is that I 
think there's a long way to go with regards to security and other legal 
issues.  These will all get resolved one way or the other, but once they 
are, this middle ground is where we should all be able to play as 
"consumers" AND "sellers" with product or information or opinion whatnot 
(what's the difference really).

--
Randall Gale
Regional Director
Information Security
Predictive Systems
vox: 781-751-9629
fax: 781-329-9343
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.predictive.com
--

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Robert G. Ferrell]

> It is also impossible to differentiate between so-called
> spam and expressions of a personal political, social or
> artistic nature. 

Herein lies one of the major issues that ought to be sorted out before 
anyone takes any steps to regulate spam.  What is spam, exactly?  There seems  
to be a wide variety of notions as to what constitutes a spam.  Some 
people define it in its original context; i.e., unsolicited commercial 
email.  Others broaden the definition to include offensive or off-topic 
remarks on a public or private list.  Still others would include *any* email 
they didn't want to receive as 'spam.'  It would be extremely challenging and 
largely useless to attempt to regulate what you can't even categorize, methinks.

RGF

Robert G. Ferrell

 Who goeth without humor goeth unarmed.

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Bob Allisat]

Kurt Weber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Personally, I have nothing against the legitimacy of spam.  I don't
> like it, but I do believe that it should be legal.  If they want
> to outlaw telemarketing and junk mail, then they can outlaw spam. 
> Besides, because of the nature of the Internet, if you outlaw spam,
> then the same person could send it from a locale where spamming
> IS legal.  It's impossible to eradicate spam through legislation.

 It is also impossible to differentiate between so-called
 spam and expressions of a personal political, social or
 artistic nature. All of which should be protected in any
 legitimate democracy. All to often our technical over-seers
 are all to willing to sacrifice precious liberties and
 freedoms in the interests of presumed network integrity.

 What, pray tell, is the use of any infrastructure if it
 cannot tolerate the full gamut of human communications?
 Including the crass, craven and (SHUDDERS) the artistic?
 Such a network is of no value at all. The harder and higher
 the standards you IETF people militate towards the more
 likely your precious work will be circumvented and bypassed
 as inadequate. There were other computer networks that 
 rose and fell besides the Internet. I was there and I can
 name a few of them and I suspect I will live to see the
 rise of still others. Cautionary thoughts me thinks(?).

 Alive and well and living somewhere in Toronto. Sort of.

 Bob Allisat

 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Jeffrey Altman]

> Perhaps one of the solution would be to limit the amount of addressees one
> email can go out to simultaneously. Imagine Joe Spammer would have to send
> out his junk say to max 30 addresses at a time. Or even 100. It would not
> impair normal users because we do not send mail to more than a few addresses
> at a time - but it would make spamming a little more difficult.
> I already hear the argument: There'd be "solutions" to circumvent this
> limitation faster than it would be implemented. Still I think it is worth
> the debate. What do you think?

The premise is not true.  When planning parties or even
volleyball tournaments I frequently send out e-mail to several hundred
friends.  This is not spam.  Arbitrary limits are not the answer.




Jeffrey Altman * Sr.Software Designer * Kermit-95 for Win32 and OS/2
 The Kermit Project * Columbia University
  612 West 115th St #716 * New York, NY * 10025
  http://www.kermit-project.org/k95.html * [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Keith Moore]

> The bottom line is that although the bill has some unsavory aspects (hey,
> this is politics, dontcha know), it is well intended, and restoral of the
> banner notification could be a serious tool in the fight against junk
> email.

sure, but there's no way the DMA is going to let that happen.
they'll water down the bill (as they have done) to make it almost
completely ineffective at stopping spam.  their idea is to raise
the bar for spam just enough that maybe the porn merchants can't use it
but folks trying to sell you soap or cars or whatever can use it. 

and the folks who supported the compromise (in the name of trying to
get *some* bill passed) end up having to support a bill that actually
makes the situation worse. 

Keith

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Chip Rosenthal]

On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 09:35:23PM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
> And I hope that the courts will finally realize that freedom of speech 
> includes the freedom not to have your communications disrupted by people 
> who want to sell you things.

The biggest problem with the bill, as it currently reads, is that the
transport notification has been dropped.  There was an ID by Hoffman
and Levine (I believe since expired, can't find it now) that allowed
an organization to "opt out" from unsolicited commercial email by
indicating so in the SMTP banner.

For instance ...

220 garcon.unicom.com ESMTP Sendmail [NO UCE, C=US, L=TX]; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 12:11:02 
-0500 (CDT)

Although "opt out" in general is evil, this actually is quite nice.  The
organization need opt out only once (in the SMTP banner), and the effect
should be immediate.

The bottom line is that although the bill has some unsavory aspects (hey,
this is politics, dontcha know), it is well intended, and restoral of the
banner notification could be a serious tool in the fight against junk
email.

-- 
Chip Rosenthal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  http://www.unicom.com/
Protect your mail server against spam.http://mail-abuse.org/
Junk email is theft.  There ought to be a law.http://www.cauce.org/
Preserve the monopoly & protect innovation: BSoD, paper clip, email worms, ...

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Valdis . Kletnieks]

On Fri, 16 Jun 2000 14:21:10 -, "Dawson, Peter D" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
said:
> The MX admin.. can limit the no of addressess/per outgoing mail

I'm assuming that if there's an "MX admin", that you're referring to a software
package called 'MX', and not the 'MX' DNS record - the MX DNS record doesn't
allow limiting of addresses/mail, it's just a pointer.

I am unaware of an 'MX' package.  However, note that Sendmail currently has
between 70% and 90% of the MTA market, depending on what numbers you use, and
Sendmail 8.10.2 *will* allow the *inbound* limiting of maximum addresses/mail.

In any case, there's two possibilities:

1) The MX admin is unaware of the spammer's activities - and will probably
bounce the user off the machine as soon as he finds out.  Thus, the limit
doesn't matter.

2) The MX admin is aware and approves.  Now explain to me *why* the MX admin
is going to set this limit, and annoy the person paying his salary??

Limiting the number of mails per *incoming* connection is a bit better - but
not much.  It makes sense to set it on my workstation, as any mail that shows
up with more than 1 (or maybe 2) recipients is obviously broken.  But even then,
if there's more than 1 or 2 recipeints, all the limit does is save me from
having to bounce the other bad addresses.

On a large mail hub, it's even worse - we often *legitimately* have several
hundred or even thousand recipients for our *internal* mailing lists.  And I
don;'t know of ANY software that allows tuning max recipients/message on
a per-source basis

-- 
Valdis Kletnieks
Operating Systems Analyst
Virginia Tech




 PGP signature

RE: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Dawson, Peter D]

->-Original Message-
->From: Lillian Komlossy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
->Sent: Friday, June 16, 2000 9:29 AM
->To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
->Subject: Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail 
->
->
->Perhaps one of the solution would be to limit the amount of 
->addressees one
->email can go out to simultaneously. 

The MX admin.. can limit the no of addressess/per outgoing mail

/pd

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Lillian Komlossy]

Perhaps one of the solution would be to limit the amount of addressees one
email can go out to simultaneously. Imagine Joe Spammer would have to send
out his junk say to max 30 addresses at a time. Or even 100. It would not
impair normal users because we do not send mail to more than a few addresses
at a time - but it would make spamming a little more difficult.
I already hear the argument: There'd be "solutions" to circumvent this
limitation faster than it would be implemented. Still I think it is worth
the debate. What do you think?

Have a good weekend everybody!
Lillian

Lillian Komlossy || Site Manager || http://www.dmnews.com ||
http://www.imarketingnews.com || 212 925-7300 ext. 232 ||
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Keith Moore]

Eric,

not that I disagree with anything you said, but I don't see the spam
issue as being about commercial use of the Internet - I see it as being
about my ability to communicate with correspondents of my choice
without interference from others...  

the fact that I have to pay for such interference doesn't help.

Keith

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Eric Brunner]

Keith,

Assume that that e-ad and direct e-marketing (email) was $4 billion in 1999.
The estimates I have at hand are that the the rate will be $18 billion in
2002. Roughly between now and 2005 the net's share of ads, regardless of the
delivery form, is going to increase six-fold -- according to my crystal ball.

There is a reason for this -- an unintended consequence of convience. The
primary mode of use (research, browsing and purchasing) leaves intent in
machine readable form, on dump tapes or click trails or ... and gratis our
integrated ordering, billing, and payment cycle the net has become (or has
been for some time already) a user-maintained transactional database. My
dad could get a smile out of this, as he did early retail point-of-payment
bar code systems, which married up not only with back-end inventory systems,
but also to payment systems.

I don't want to point a particular finger at http state-management (aka
"cookies") or any of a number of other techniques for extracting updates
of transactions. Which is "worst" may be interesting, and what and how to
illuminate users (rather than their transactions) is why I started the
cookie-cutters list -- it seems like a user-services thing to do, neh?

What I do want to point out is that there the direct e-mailers (Digital
Impact, MessageMedia, etc.) are not acting in isolation -- media buyers
like Avenue A and Mediaplex, also buy-side companies, sell-side companies,
whether portals, ad networks, or e-mail newsletters, and promotional
companies, all act in some way on transactional data. Which ever side of
the policy balloon gets squeezed, that is a lot of money looking to find
effective mechanisms, and no amount of dull ax work is going to undo the
crucial decision to unfund the public backbone and withdraw the restriction
on commercial use. We could have seen that one comming, neh? 

Several years ago my friend Barry Shein started an effort to limit spam,
before banner ads or professional direct e-marketing, back when dorkage and
poor taste were the gravamen of the offense. As we know the general contours
of the future, we also know that trusting user interfaces, whether mailer
or browser, won't scale with the offered load. This is the IETF's problem
domain, regardless of what happens with HR 3113.

Cheers,
Eric

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Keith Moore]

> Furthermore, CAUCE, which is a widely respected anti-spam organization,
> "vigorously supports" HR 3113 according to
> .

my understanding is that CAUCE has been in cahoots with the DMA for quite
a while.  so whatever they respect that might once have had is now dubious.
 
> Although I might prefer for spam to just be outlawed, I am certainly willing
> to go to an FCC website to remove my email addresses, and I do not consider
> the 30 day waiting period that onerous.

I don't believe for a nanosecond that an opt-out list is going to work.
It doesn't work for phone solicitation, it doesn't work for junk snail
mail.  It certainly won't work for a global Internet.

> But why not make up your own mind.  The bill is at
> .

Be sure to read the amended version.  It's better than the original.

Keith

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Keith Moore]

> I've yet to read the whole bill (H.R. 3113), but I suspect (or, at 
>least, hope) that the politicians behind this legislation are intending to 
>draft a federal law that, unlike at least two state attempts, will survive 
>a constitutional challenge.

And I hope that the courts will finally realize that freedom of speech 
includes the freedom not to have your communications disrupted by people 
who want to sell you things.

Keith

RE: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Dan Kohn]

Furthermore, CAUCE, which is a widely respected anti-spam organization,
"vigorously supports" HR 3113 according to
<http://www.cauce.org/pressreleases/pr-hr3113-1.shtml>.

Although I might prefer for spam to just be outlawed, I am certainly willing
to go to an FCC website to remove my email addresses, and I do not consider
the 30 day waiting period that onerous.

But why not make up your own mind.  The bill is at
<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:H.R.3113:>.

- dan
--
Daniel Kohn <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
tel:+1-425-602-6222
http://www.dankohn.com

-Original Message-
From: Doug Isenberg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, 2000-06-15 16:04
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail 


At 04:37 PM 6/15/00, Keith Moore wrote:
>yeah, the bill contains language like
>
>"Unsolicited commercial electronic mail can be an important mechanism
>through which businesses advertise and attract customers in the online
>environment."
>
>this bill isn't designed to limit spam; it's designed to make it legal.

 In the interest of providing both sides of the story, it should be 
noted that the bill also contains language like:

 "The receipt of unsolicited commercial electronic mail may result 
in costs to recipients who cannot refuse to accept such mail and who incur 
costs for the storage of such mail, or for the time spent accessing, 
reviewing, and discarding such mail, or for both."

and

 "Unsolicited commercial electronic mail may impose significant 
monetary costs on interactive computer services, businesses, and 
educational and nonprofit institutions that carry and receive such mail, as 
there is a finite volume of mail that such providers, businesses, and 
institutions can handle without further investment. The sending of such 
mail is increasingly and negatively affecting the quality of service 
provided to customers of interactive computer service, and shifting costs 
from the sender of the advertisement to the interactive computer service."

 I've yet to read the whole bill (H.R. 3113), but I suspect (or, at 
least, hope) that the politicians behind this legislation are intending to 
draft a federal law that, unlike at least two state attempts, will survive 
a constitutional challenge.

===
Douglas M. Isenberg
Attorney @ Law
Editor & Publisher, GigaLaw.com
===
GigaLaw.com: "Legal Information for
Internet and Technology Professionals"
http://www.GigaLaw.com
===

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Doug Isenberg]

At 04:37 PM 6/15/00, Keith Moore wrote:
>yeah, the bill contains language like
>
>"Unsolicited commercial electronic mail can be an important mechanism
>through which businesses advertise and attract customers in the online
>environment."
>
>this bill isn't designed to limit spam; it's designed to make it legal.

 In the interest of providing both sides of the story, it should be 
noted that the bill also contains language like:

 "The receipt of unsolicited commercial electronic mail may result 
in costs to recipients who cannot refuse to accept such mail and who incur 
costs for the storage of such mail, or for the time spent accessing, 
reviewing, and discarding such mail, or for both."

and

 "Unsolicited commercial electronic mail may impose significant 
monetary costs on interactive computer services, businesses, and 
educational and nonprofit institutions that carry and receive such mail, as 
there is a finite volume of mail that such providers, businesses, and 
institutions can handle without further investment. The sending of such 
mail is increasingly and negatively affecting the quality of service 
provided to customers of interactive computer service, and shifting costs 
from the sender of the advertisement to the interactive computer service."

 I've yet to read the whole bill (H.R. 3113), but I suspect (or, at 
least, hope) that the politicians behind this legislation are intending to 
draft a federal law that, unlike at least two state attempts, will survive 
a constitutional challenge.

===
Douglas M. Isenberg
Attorney @ Law
Editor & Publisher, GigaLaw.com
===
GigaLaw.com: "Legal Information for
Internet and Technology Professionals"
http://www.GigaLaw.com
===

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Kurt Weber]

 Well, spam is already legal.

 Personally, I have nothing against the legitimacy of spam.  I don't like
it,
 but I do believe that it should be legal.  If they want to outlaw
 telemarketing and junk mail, then they can outlaw spam.  Besides, because
of
 the nature of the Internet, if you outlaw spam, then the same person could
 send it from a locale where spamming IS legal.  It's impossible to
eradicate
 spam through legislation.

 Regards,
 Kurt Weber
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ROW Software and Web Design
 http://www.rowsw.com

> - Original Message -
> From: "Keith Moore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Lillian Komlossy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 3:37 PM
> Subject: Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail
>
>
> > yeah, the bill contains language like
> >
> > "Unsolicited commercial electronic mail can be an important mechanism
> > through which businesses advertise and attract customers in the online
> > environment."
> >
> > this bill isn't designed to limit spam; it's designed to make it legal.
> >
> > criminals.
> >
> > Keith
> >
>

Re: fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Keith Moore]

yeah, the bill contains language like

"Unsolicited commercial electronic mail can be an important mechanism
through which businesses advertise and attract customers in the online
environment."

this bill isn't designed to limit spam; it's designed to make it legal.

criminals.

Keith

fyi.. House Committee Passes Bill Limiting Spam E-Mail

[Lillian Komlossy]

http://www.dmnews.com/articles/2000-06-12/8879.html
Lillian Komlossy || Site Manager || http://www.dmnews.com || http://www.imarketingnews.com || 212 
925-7300 ext. 232 || mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]